Trade Tips: The Mentor

Money. Resources. Skills. Time. Why and what we choose to invest is often based upon our perceived value of benefit that investment will produce. We also desire a good outcome from our investment. Investments require our commitment to the process in order to reap a fruitful harvest—which may not occur immediately.  The process may require some tweaking, some risk, patience and perseverance. When the reward comes, it will benefit you and others. The same applies when company leaders choose to invest in their staff members. 

Next week begins our two-part series on mentoring, and the value leaders can bring to their team when they recognize how to best invest in them.  Employees may excel in various expertise, but have other areas that require development. An employee may perform well on tasks previously outlined, but struggle to lead a project yet formed. The employee desires to develop such skills but is unsure how to proceed.  Based on our series topic, what qualities do you believe a good leader needs to mentor their staff/team?

We hope to receive your mentor insights. Next week we’ll depict: The Leader Within.

By Nicole Hayes

A Missisippi Mess

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour pardoned four convicted murderers before leaving office

Good Ole boy Haley Barbour really stepped in it during his last days in office as governor. Barbour issued 215 pardons and the uproar was deafening. Barbour, a former RNC Chair and lobbyist, long popular with right-wing Republicans came under immediate attack for releasing murderers and other violent criminals. The state attorney general filed a complaint alleging that 156 of the pardons were unconstitutional because state law requires a 30 day public notice in the communities where the crimes occurred. A judge refused to send those pardoned back to prison, but ordered those convicted of murder to check in with parole officers. A hearing has been scheduled for February 3. More about the legal challenges here.
 

The uproar got so bad, Barbour wrote a commentary in the elitist liberal Washington Post, pointing out that the Parole Board had recommended 90 % of those pardoned receive some sort of clemency and that previous governors had a long history of pardoning trustees who work in the governor’s mansion. Here’s Barbour’s attempt to set the record straight.

 

Missing from most of the heated verbal and online confrontations—is that just like most things in Mississippi, the pardons have an ugly racial tinge. Fully two out of three prisoners pardoned by Barbour were white--- even though the state’s prison population is two-thirds African-American. Barbour’s staff insist that race played no role in the decisions, as did the Parole Board. Statisticians who have looked at Mississippi’s pardon process overall say white prisoners are four times likelier to be paroled than African-Americans. Reuters initially broke the story about the racial discrepancy and it was picked up by the Huffington Post.

 

The fallout continues as Barbour’s successor, Republican Phil Bryant, has not only vowed to refrain from pardoning convicted prisoners—he has vowed to bar them from working in the governor’s mansion or grounds. While the rhetorical fallout continues—one place Barbour won’t be hurting is his wallet. He’s already given the first speech in a lucrative speaking contract with Leading Authorities in the $30,000-$50,000 range. This is only one of the former governor’s new jobs. Barbour has also rejoined his old law firm Butler Snow and the lobbying powerhouse BRG according to today's New York Times.

 

In case you’re wondering about the two  Scott sisters who Barbour granted an early release after a decade of appeals from state human rights groups—they’re still under court supervision. Jamie and Gladys Scott were paroled after serving 16 years of a life sentence, on the condition that Gladys donate a kidney to Jamie. The two African-American sisters still have to report to a parole officer and with a felony conviction have found it impossible to find work. Maybe Barbour can turn some of his speaking gigs over to them.

By: Llenda Jackson-Leslie

Video: A Farewell to Etta James

A Farewell to Etta James

By: Ryan Duncan

Via: The New York Times:

Etta James, whose powerful, versatile and emotionally direct voice could enliven the raunchiest blues as well as the subtlest love songs, most indelibly in her signature hit, “At Last,” died Friday morning in Riverside, Calif. She was 73. 

Her manager, Lupe De Leon, said that the cause was complications of leukemia. Ms. James, who died at Riverside Community Hospital, had been undergoing treatment for some time for a number of conditions, including leukemia and dementia. She also lived in Riverside.

As with any great artist, Etta James leaves behind a lasting musical legacy and impact that will definetly live, so long as there are those who appreciate great music. We hope Etta James is now in peace. R.I.P.

Trade Tips: Twitter in Small Steps

Trade Tips: Twitter in Small Steps

By Nicole Hayes

A personal goal for some this year (like myself) is finding more time to practice and/or develop social media outreach skills. Even if you hire/task someone else to conduct your social media outreach, it's imperative you understand the use and impact of such tools. I’ll start with Twitter, which in some respects is outpacing Facebook in advancing conversations. What is Twitter? Per Wikipedia, Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, known as "tweets". It was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with over 300 million users as of 2011, generating over 300 million tweets and handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day. It has been described as "the SMS of the Internet." Users can group posts together by topic or type by use of hashtags – words or phrases prefixed with a "#" sign. Similarly, the "@" sign followed by a username is used for mentioning or replying to other users. To repost a message from another Twitter user, and share it with one's own followers, the retweet function is symbolized by "RT" in the message.

Given this basic overview, here are a few Twitter tips for maximizing your outreach:

*Use Hoot Suite application for your phone to manage your tweets on the go

*Use Tweet Deck onto your computer; it's great for managing multiple Twitter accounts and allows you to edit retweets unlike the regular Twitter

*Participate in "Tweet Ups" which are "meet ups" with people/professionals you've met on Twitter you want to know more about/share similar interests (discretion advised)

*Join Twitter chats to engage in regular discussion topics of importance to you, as this will help your dialogues and build your followings

*Socialoomph a tool to help schedule your tweets;

*If you're busy (that's a silly statement) you can also ask friends, your team to push out tweets you've crafted in advance for promoting a campaign, issue

*Tweetreach.com is a tool to measure impact and reach of your tweets via your hash tags used

*Good etiquette and use of social media platforms is like building a relationship: Interact with people, take interest in what others are saying, retweet what they're saying if you like it, thank them for retweeting your tweet, when deciding who to follow it's all about quality of that person not their quantity of followers

*Remember to share information that is helpful to people—don't only tweet the buttered toast you ate for breakfast

Now you’re ready to “tweet tweet!”

Video: A Quick Minute with Gwen Remembering Ofield Dukes

A Quick Minute with Gwen Remembering Ofield Dukes

By: Ryan Duncan

In this installment of A Quick Minute with Gwen, Gwen McKinney, President of McKinney & Associates Public Relations, remembers the Dean of public relations, Ofield Dukes, who passed away on December 7th, 2011. His life, and his legacy, will always live on and always be remembered.

Be sure to read more about Ofield Dukes and his indelible impact on the public relations profession in our previous blog posts: Tribute to a PR Icon & Real PR Power.

Criminal Justice: A Sin and A Shame

A Sin and A Shame

By: Llenda Jackson-Leslie

Someone or some people ought to be losing their jobs over the wrongful deportation and incarceration of Houston teenager, Jakadrien Turner. Turner ran away from home to Atlanta, GA last year at the age of 14 and was picked up for shoplifting. After she gave the name of a Colombian native to police—they turned her over to ICE even though her fingerprints weren’t a match—and she spoke no Spanish—not one word. ICE then deported her to Colombia. Her grandmother who had been searching for Jakadrien—finally tracked her whereabouts through Facebook.

If you think the incompetence and callous treatment of the African American teen is pretty shocking up to this point—it gets worse. ICE officials told the grandmother that if she wanted her granddaughter returned to the US—she would have to buy a plane ticket for her. Finally as news accounts of the story spread, the government was shamed into returning her. And fortunately she was reunited with her family two days ago.

No one charged with enforcing the law or immigration policy looks good in this story—not ICE, the Colombian government or Atlanta police. Even sadder, immigration advocates and lawyers say Jakadrien’s story isn’t that unusual or even that tragic. The case against ICE is replete with stories of people dying in custody, being denied medical treatment or medication and nursing infants being separated from their mothers.

Yet so far there have been no reports of ICE officials being fired or investigated—no calls from Congress for eliminating the agency. Is it because this error and a host of others—humiliating, outrageous and even fatal—disproportionately impact Black, Brown and poor people?

You can read a pretty full account of Jakadrien’s ordeal at Madame Noire and Juliane Hing offers more details at Colorlines.

Has our government gone astray?